Ex-KGB spy was poisoned twice with polonium, U.K. inquiry told
Evidence suggested Litvinenko had ingested the highly radioactive isotope polonium-210 in mid-October 2006 and again two weeks later.
A long-awaited inquiry into the death of a former Russian spy opened with the revelation that the KGB agent turned Kremlin critic may have been poisoned with radioactive polonium not once - as authorities initially thought - but twice.
LONDON — Former Russian agent Alexander Litvinenko was poisoned with radioactive polonium not once but twice, a British judge was told Tuesday, as an inquiry opened into the slaying one lawyer called an act of nuclear terrorism ordered by Moscow.
Ben Emmerson, attorney for Litvinenko’s widow, said the KGB spy turned Kremlin critic was the victim of an “assassination by agents of the Russian state.”
He said the 2006 killing “was an act of nuclear terrorism on the streets of a major city which put the lives of numerous other members of the public at risk.”
Litvinenko, who had become a Britain-based critic of the Kremlin, fell violently ill on Nov. 1, 2006 after drinking tea with two Russian men at a London hotel. He died three weeks later, aged 43, of “acute radiation syndrome.”
Litvinenko’s extraordinary killing — and his deathbed statement that he was poisoned on orders from President Vladimir Putin — soured Russian-British relations for years. Judge Robert Owen, who is overseeing the inquiry, said the issues raised by the death “are of the utmost gravity.”
No one has ever stood trial for Litvinenko’s killing. Britain and the dead man’s family have accused Russia of involvement. Moscow denies the claim, and has refused to extradite the two men identified by Britain as the prime suspects.
JACK TAYLOR / AFP/GETTY IMAGES
Marina Litvinenko, widow of Russian former spy Alexander Litvinenko walks towards the Royal Courts of Justice in central London on Tuesday. The most sensational spy tale since the Cold War landed in a London court on Tuesday as inquiry hearings began to examine alleged Russian state involvement in the radiation poisoning death of Alexander Litvinenko.
Robin Tam, the inquiry’s legal counsel, said in an opening statement that the inquiry was not a trial whose job was to determine guilt — but that it would try to follow the evidence wherever it led.
Outlining key evidence, Tam said that detectives had found “a large number of positive traces” of the radioactive isotope polonium-210 in London locations visited by Litvinenko and the two suspects: Dmitry Kovtun and former KGB agent Andrei Lugovoi. Ingesting a tiny amount is enough to kill.
Tam said the inquiry would hear evidence that Litvinenko “was poisoned with polonium not once, but twice” and the poisoning “met with at least some success” on both occasions. Litvinenko complained of feeling ill a couple of weeks before he was hospitalized, after an earlier meeting with Kovtun and Lugovoi.
The inquiry would also hear from a witness who says Kovtun asked him if he knew a London cook who could put a “very expensive poison” in Litvinenko’s food, Tam said.
Kovtun and Lugovoi have strongly denied involvement in Litvinenko’s death. The judge said they have been invited to give evidence to the inquiry by video link from Russia.
Litvinenko’s widow, Marina, has said she hopes the inquiry will reveal the truth about her husband’s death.
The investigation first stalled because Russia refused to hand over the suspects, then because British authorities would not disclose secret intelligence evidence. Under the terms of the inquiry, that evidence will be heard, but in secret.
Public hearings at London’s Royal Courts of Justice are due to last until April, and Owen said he hoped to publish his findings by the end of the year.
Owen has already said that he has seen secret British government material that “established a prima facie case that the Russian state was responsible” for Litvinenko’s death.
Tam said the inquiry would look at Litvinenko’s role in Russia’s first Chechen war and his later sympathy for the Chechen cause, and would hear evidence that the ex-spy converted to Islam on his deathbed.
He said the inquiry would look at Litvinenko’s relationships with the late Russian oligarch Boris Berezovsky and with slain journalist Anna Politkovskaya, and his increasingly vocal criticism of the Kremlin.
Tam said the judge would need to ask himself whether such actions would have made Moscow authorities regard him “as an irritant, or worse.”
He said the inquiry also would consider whether British security agencies, Berezovsky, underworld figures or Chechens could have been responsible — or even whether Litvinenko’s death was an accident or suicide.
What is polonium?
Polonium-210 is one of the world’s rarest elements, discovered in 1898 by scientists Marie and Pierre Curie and named in honour of her country of origin, Poland. It occurs naturally in very low concentrations in the Earth’s crust and also is produced artificially in nuclear reactors. In small amounts, it has legitimate industrial uses, mainly in devices to eliminate static electricity. Polonium is not naturally found in the human body.
How dangerous is it?
Very. If ingested, it is lethal in extremely small doses. A minuscule amount of the silver powder is sufficient to kill. British radiation experts say once polonium-210 enters the bloodstream, its deadly effects are nearly impossible to stop.
